![houdini 1953 houdini 1953](https://worldscinema.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Houdini-1953-e1601894011273.jpg)
One-time Paramount producer Endre Bohem was to make the project, for which Stephen Longstreet had already written a screenplay, with Cohen and Raboff and their new company, Film Producers, Inc. According to Jul and Aug 1950 news items, Joseph Raboff and Earl Cohen, real estate men from Los Angeles and New York, acquired the rights to Harold Kellock's biography first, as well as the rights to Houdini's life story from his estate, intending to produce a film entitled The Life Story of Harry Houdini. Paramount announced plans to make a screen biography of Houdini as early as 1935. The Halloween date was not otherwise significant in his life, as suggested by the film, although his widow hosted annual séances on the holiday for about ten years after his death. Houdini died of peritonitis, brought on by a ruptured appendix, in Montreal on. Houdini starred in six silent films between 19, including Haldane of the Secret Service, which he also directed (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1921-30). In addition, he would sometimes deliberately hide under docks during underwater tricks, in order to make people think he had drowned. Although Houdini did work to expose fraudulent gamblers and spiritualists and was interested in the hereafter, as depicted in the film, he did not retire from the stage in order to communicate with her spirit. The same year, his mother died in New York, while Houdini was performing in Europe. In 1913, he introduced his Chinese Water Torture Cell to his act and performed it without difficulty many times. Īfter a successful tour on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, Houdini went to Europe on the advice of a friend, touring there for five years.
![houdini 1953 houdini 1953](https://img.yts.mx/assets/images/movies/houdini_1953/large-screenshot2.jpg)
In 1913, he introduced his Chinese Water Torture Cell to his act and performed it without difficulty. Around this time, Houdini expanded his magic act to include challenges, offering rewards to anyone who could restrain or imprison him in any manner of apparati or cell.Īfter a successful tour on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit, Houdini went to Europe on the advice of a friend, touring there for five years. As depicted in the film, after their marriage, Bess became part of Houdini's act, traveling around the country with him. In 1894, Houdini met and married Wilhelmina Beatrice "Bess" Rahner, a singer-dancer with the Floral Sisters act. His early act included card and handcuff tricks, which he performed with his younger brother Theo at amusement parks and the Chicago 1893 World's Fair. After reading the autobiography of influential magician Robert Houdin, Houdini then changed his name. Houdini began his magic career as a teenager, calling himself Eric the Great. He and his family eventually settled in New York, where Houdini worked as a messenger and a tie cutter, and won awards in swimming and track. To help his impoverished family, Houdini, the son of a rabbi, began working when he was eight and left home at twelve, sending money home from various jobs. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1874, Houdini, whose real name was Ehrich Weiss, emigrated with his family to Appleton, WI, at the age of four. As noted by Milbourne Christopher, the editor of Magazine of the Society of American Magicians, in a Jan 1954 Var item, Houdini contains many inaccuracies about the magician's life.